I walk the path
guided by the gray
pearls, memories cast
upon the heart’s way.
Faded love once more
brought to light
not to decipher the score
see what’s more wrong or right.
Or what could be done
to stave off the pain,
find a path that would be won
a better caste in honor’s light.
No matter how sweet the lips
aged in a cask ‘til well refined --
could I have done more to fit
the gift your heart to mine.
Perhaps, its better to have failed
Learned my lesson in deep detail
accept the hurt that made me wise
then in love remained hypnotized.
Maybe to love and part is less cruel
when we were young and innocent fools
then to have stayed and lived a lie.
We are not meant to succeed at every try.
We are not born knowing all the tale
upon which our lives will rise and fail.
Success is earned as much from defeat
much more than winning every heart we meet.
It is the truth for me to say,
I loved them all, I was be spelled.
My age matters little, anyway,
just the what I learned as I fell.
11:34 PM
08/21/08
Alexandria, VA
Author notes
Prompt -- "The art of love... is largely the art of persistence."~Albert Ellis
In a list
A contest entry
- The Constant Gardner~A Dedication to Wounded Lovers by Blue Rew.
808 points, ended August 26, 2008, 10 entries
Gold trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think, what it makes you feel, how you are moved.
Comments
1 - 18 of 18
-
Philosophical poetry ...
that weaves the present with the past and creates a blanket of warmth will always catch my attention. This poem deserved the gold for it is well written and well shared. The truth in your last verse is so welcomed by one who knows.
j
y
-
-
When people are not objects, the prize at the end of a quest -- when we learn that living is an art and being able to swim in the sea of our feelings a challenge at which we should be best, then, we have the opportunity to savor life's gifts instead or gulping them down as if they will disappear from the plate if left.
Glad you enjoyed this simple piece. You might enjoy my newest one, where I discuss love with my son.
Peace & Light,
Tom B.
-
-
Extraordinary verse. I am so very very pleased to see GOLD on this gem. Well done and Congratulations. Simply a pleasure to read and enjoy.
~Pamela 
-
-
I used the rhyme scheme for emphasis and to tie it togerther with its own sense of internal consistancy. The thoughts and ideas are of course only my simple musings. I am always touched when I find they touch others.
Love,
Tom B.
-
-
Composed with much thought and introspect...
and it shows. You inhale the prompt, swirl
it with personal experience and leave a
lingering flavor of love as it transistions
to meaning within a single life. Persistence
is punctuated here in the rise and fall of
heart's contemplations. I did pause at the
end, specifically "be spelled", but after
rereading, I found it quite enchanting as-is.
Thank-you for putting your muse to the task.
Blue
-
-
Most view persistence in love as the chasing of a single person. It is as if love is the challenge and the person the prize. I think, perhaps, it is better to look as being willing to learn to love and love richly and well, no matter how often you must face your errors and mistakes. Often I loved to young, the wrong one, or chased and dream that i pretended had a name. They often felt they were better for knowing me, I always knew I was better for having known them. In the end, it took a second marriage and alot of hard work between my first and second marriage to learn to do it well. I know that many do not see it this way, but we may be born to love, but rarely are we well aware of the skills necessary to maintain a good relationship. A few are gifted with a healthy childhood and healthy parents and a non disfuctional environment. I was not one of them. So I had to practice and learn.
Love, Tom B.
-
-
Tender open and honest write. Lots of wisdom to be mined here. You need to rework the last line of the third from last stanza. Add a 'to' or change to 'success'.
-
-
Thanks for the editorial comment. It is always a gift to have someone to read close enough to parse and catch such a simple mistake. My appreciation.
I guess a fifty-eight, I can invest in the pretense to have lived enough to have something worth saying To love only one once and never to have loved again, except in some rare case, is not a conversation of love as much as being unwilling to accept that love is not about possession and all the sins surrounding greed and ownership. People are not objects. We are often gifted with much wonder and knowledge when we look at our language and actions and see how much we do that in innocence. Then, stop and do it no longer. If we wish to shift the content and context of our lives, we need to learn how how to see ourselves.
Again my thanks.
Peace & Light,
Tom B.
-
-
I do adore your words Sir Tomis, you have such amazing talent for wonderful imagery...
This is really beautiful...
Many blessings
~A~
-
-
Thanks Melissa. All part of the journey my life has taken.
Love, Tom B.
-
-
This came from somewhere I have been to. I'm going slow, because I believe I need to think about this write...
The end, Im not sure of. Confused me a little, but maybe its just me.
As usual your light is welcome into my life now.
It's what I needed, don't think I didn't see it.
Love always,
jin
-
-
I think it would serve well to share a little about me. I grew up the oldest of six with co-dependent parents, my father a officer in the navy, my mom overwhelmed by six kids so I became the third parent. My father and I spent most of our lives at war. I scared him because i was always trying to make him become the father I wanted him to be and he wanted me to be tough and strong so the world couldn't screw me over. In the end we both abused the hell out of each other. In the end I made peace between us, after my mother had died and a few years before he did.
I had to out grow my High Anxiety Disorder first and that took several years with a good therapist and the right kind of therapy. I have been reaquainting myself with my own feelings since then and learning the panapoly of sensations that I can experience. I have re married at 42 and now have a thirteen year old son.
Out of this broad brush stroke of who I am comes someone who has been going back through my life to discover what my path is. I find out that in the process I have to release myself from a lot of old trash and history and move on. I find I am a leader and a man of great compassion. Now, I think I am slowly returning to the path I should have followed from the start. Sometimes our starts are a little delayed.
This poem touches on aspect of the journey I have been on. The lessons learned and the realizing what is important and what is simply a step out of the past and not something that needs be part of the future.
I hope some of this helps. 
Love, Tom B.
-
-
This has such a sad lonely tone to it. A quiet, almost desperation, that says we stay......and become part of that great blue lake at the bottom of that rushing stream.... there is undertow and current but the surface belies it.
-
-
this contest got me thinking about how things looked to me as I looked back. I have been blessed to love broadly and strongly and to have made a positive difference in many different lives. We are all part of a larger spirit and play parts in it they we often don't know or even acknowledge. I am now at 58, just beginning to see how far from my path I have strayed and doing the hard work to get back to it.
Love, Tom B.
-
-
'to fall in love and then part' ... even when we are older some people tend to stay for all the wrong reasons. But to have loved in the first instance keeps us striving to go and do it again.
I am so pleased to see you back writing in your own unique style.
Love
Juls
-
-
I figure that when i open my mouth or use my pen it is immediately affected by my unique style.
But, then I am just the writer, what do I know? If memories in people we could get in trouble for how often we rub against them 
Love, Tom B.
-
-
You look back on past experience with enlightenment and perhaps the quote captures how you see what you couldn't hold on to because persistance has to be accepted by two people not one, other wise it fails. C
-
-
It is not enough to love one once. Love is not so defined that it is kept to the path of some narrow wash, quickly seen, understood and known from beginning to end. Instead love melts from the ice cap and thunders forth down the mountain, gaining from the rain the crack and thrust of rock, the swirl of soil, that if we are to know it we must ride with it and laugh and delight and be part of the madness.
"Of course, " he says in his best British accent, "I would never partake of life in such a manner."
Love, Tom B.
-
Adding your comment:
1 - 18 of 18
